Leaks, riots, and monocles: how a $60 in-game item almost destroyed EVE Online

When the developers of EVE Online added expensive in-game vanity items and a …

Just like boutique jeans

EVE in-game protest

Players began to riot in the game, attacking trading posts and popular in-game destinations. Rioters hoped to negatively impact the game's economy, and players began signing petitions pledging to ditch their subscriptions if microtransactions became a part of the game's experience.

People have been shocked by the price range in the NeX store, but you should remember that we are talking about clothes. Look at the clothes you are currently wearing in real life. Do you have any specific brands? Did you choose it because it was better quality than a no-name brand? Assume for a short while that you are wearing a pair of $1,000 jeans from some exclusive Japanese boutique shop. Why would you want to wear a pair of $1,000 jeans when you can get perfectly similar jeans for under $50? What do other people think about you when they see you wearing them? For some you will look like the sad culmination of vainness while others will admire you and think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Whichever it is, it is clear that by wearing clothes you are expressing yourself and that the price is one of the many dimensions that clothes possess to do that in addition to style and fit. You don't need to buy expensive clothes. In fact you don't need to buy any clothes. Whatever you choose to do reflects what you are and what you want others to think you are.

We will gradually introduce items at other price points, definitely lower and probably higher than what's in the store today. We hope you enjoy them and are as passionate about them as you are of the current items that are for sale.

The post also explained that the leaked document was designed to get people talking about the issue from both sides, and thus it "exaggerated purposefully." None of this made angry people feel better about the situation.

Still, demonstrations like this are part of the charm of EVE's passionate community, and Reynolds explained that aspect of the controversy to Ars. "Players surprise us all the time. At this point we don't really feel like we're building a planned world that people will visit.... Yes, it can be a little scary in that we don't know what's coming next, and it can be challenging in that we constantly need to tweak and rebalance the game," he explained. "But players are supposed to find new ways to affect the EVE universe—and each other. Their emergent behavior is what makes the game so interesting and exciting."

Another CCP e-mail was then leaked, claiming that the player reaction was "very predictable feedback" and it was important to look at what players were doing, not what they were saying. "Innovation takes time to set in and the predictable reaction is always to resist change," the e-mail stated.

In response, many players cancelled their subscriptions; they were done "talking" and wanted to start "doing."

Bring in the council!

EVE Online is one of the few games which has a formal player organization to speak for the customers of the game, called the Council of Stellar Management. The members of the CSM are democratically elected, and they present the concerns of players to CCP in order to keep everything running smoothly. As players continued to disrupt the game and CCP began to take a beating in the court of public opinion, the CSM was flown to the company's offices in Iceland in order to discuss the issue of microtransactions.

"We are convinced that CCP has no plans to introduce any game-affecting virtual goods, only pure vanity items such as clothing and ship skins. We have been repeatedly assured that there are no plans for 'gold ammo,' ships which have different statistics from existing common hulls, or any other feared 'game destroying' virtual goods or services," said the Council in a statement after the meeting. "We have expressed our deep concern about potential grey areas that the introduction of virtual goods permits, and CCP has made a commitment to discuss any proposals that might fall into these grey areas in detail with CSM at the earliest possible stage."

Reynolds agreed with the CSM statement, and he stressed to Ars that this was a tempest in a tea pot... a space tea pot. "The players' biggest concern was that we might be on a slippery slope with virtual goods," he said. "They worried we would eventually offer not just vanity items, but ones that would give the Haves an unfair advantage over the Have-Nots. Once they got a closer look at our plans and saw that we literally had no plans for non-vanity items, everything calmed down a lot."

A video from CCP and the CSM

In talking to EVE players for this story, one thing I heard time and again was that players simply don't want to deal with in-game items that could give someone an advantage, and that they're barely tolerant of vanity items. By attacking trading posts and threatening to pull support for the game, the players sent a clear message that they're willing to burn the world down in order to save it—even if many weren't as outraged as the vocal minority.

Whether or not CCP had any serious plans to sell in-game items that would give players an advantage, it's clear now that the player base would react violently to such a move.

"Yes, EVE Online fans are often more forceful and passionate than fans of other games," Reynolds told Ars. "And yes, that does pose certain challenges for us as the game publisher, but it's also what makes EVE special."

The players of EVE pour themselves into their characters, ships, and the economy they help create, and this causes them to feel partial ownership of the game world. It's a feeling that CCP is happy to nurture.

"We really do create the EVE universe in partnership with the players. So yes, it's fair to say that discussions about the core mechanics of the game, like we had last week, are part of the game itself," Reynolds said. "It's a unique aspect of the EVE experience, and I think for many, a big part of its appeal."

For the moment, at least, the EVE galaxy is a little calmer. The fans are placated, and the developer learned more about its user base. To date, 184 monocles have been sold.